And now it's time for Silly Stories with Steve. This is the part of the blog where Steve writes a silly story. Actually, yesterday gave me reason to think that I had somehow ceased living and ended up in the second level of hell, so maybe silly isn't the perfect descriptor. On my third day of grad school my true love gave to me, three hours of work, two boring classes, and one missed bus ride that put me behind for an hour and a half. Actually, class wasn't bad at all, one of them at least, and I'm not worried about the heavy load of grad classes, yet. But the bad part of the day did not begin until after I was on the road heading about forty-five miles south to a town called Hamilton. I am being paid to man a booth for ABC Seamless Siding at the Ravaila County Fair, something I thought even I could pull off. On the drive down, I experienced what turned out to be sixty-mile-per-hour wind gusts coming off the mountain range, putting large parts of trees and other debris in my path, as well as creating one tough drive to make in the rain on two-lane country roads. I almost ended up in the back of somebody else's car when they suddenly stopped for a downed tree branch, and so my nerves were already a little fried when I showed up at the fair. It also turned out that I left one of my rear windows open, and we had three different thunderstorms roll through while I worked at the fair. I came to find that my predecessor, Renee, a middle-aged overweight mother of two junior-high-sort of boys (they had helped set up the booth the day before, and one ended up asking the owner of the company, Dameon, the buying price of his very nice wristwatch. It turned out to be worth only seven-thousand dollars. Jr. highers!) Renee had packed up the entire booth and put it between two trailers, also claiming that she had been mauled by the table as it flipped over on top of her. So I proceeded to set up again. Now let me explain that I had seen the entire rest of the fair (it's not a large fair) and we were the only set-up booth that didn't have some sort of tent or overhead covering. We seemed a little out of place that way, and also in being placed on the corner of two permenant trailers in a dank little place where it seemed nobody would ever find us. Whatever. So I set up the booth again, ate my packed lunch, and watched another thunderstorm roll over the mountains and head right for us. Just as quickly as I had set everything up, I put it all back away, and sat in the rain. I had actually thought of wearing shorts, and it's a good thing I didn't. I had my Crown hooded pull-over jacket on, and it did its job quite well. So the storm passed, and I set everything up again. Well, this happened two more times. I had arrived at 6 and was supposed to work until 10, but by the third storm passing through at 8:30, and the amazing lightning display that reminded me how close I sat to giant metal grandstand bleachers, I decided to pack up permenantly and call it a night. I hadn't talked to a single potential customer all night. All the other booths that where anywhere near me had been closed for two hours. I was quite wet, getting cold, and remembered how much I hated fairs. That's when I returned to my car and found my rear window down. There are moments when I wish for my own agonizing demise, and that was one of them. Luckily nothing was ruined, just my sense of well-being. Eu-demonia, for those of you missing Dr. Ratledge. And you think the story ends here. Nope! The drive back should normally take forty-five minutes, maybe a little longer. Another storm was blowing through and I was smack in the middle of it. Not only that, but there was fifteen miles of the worse road construction I had ever been on, and after all the rain, I was driving across pot-holed mud puddles and through a few spots where I thought my little Ford Tempo was going to get stuck in the mud. I arrived home sometime after 10:30 to find a relatively dry Missoula that didn't seemed to have any recollection of heroing storms and evil county fairs. That's really where the story ends, in general. I sat with Bob and Julianne watching The Player on Fox. I think its a comedy, because I found it simply hilarious for the most part. Reality TV really has no limits. I can't wait to see the reality series that takes place at Crown. Now that would be worth watching.
Marty, I'm sorry I said something bad about beer. I'll try another one sometime here.
Oh, and to everyone, I've been playing a game while on campus to see how many people I find that look like Crownies in one way or another. I mean like actually people. I just saw Lenny this morning, but I think my count is up to fifteen people that have identical twins on the University of Montana campus. Oh, and the girl that is in the history grad program here that had a brother that went to school with us - Lodine? Seth Lodine? It sounds familiar and I'm sure I'd recognize him if I saw him. So yeah, hope I see you around here. I think I can piecemeal Kurbis out of a half-dozen people that sit outside the building and smoke. And somebody please write something, even if it's just a one-sentence threat.